Tech and Work

Sorry

Matt Little — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:38:00 GMT

An upgrade appears to have caused issues with this site. Apologies if you have had problems.

Outlook 2010 by default leaves messages on the server.

Matt Little — Fri, 14 May 2010 09:15:00 GMT

Unlike previous versions of Outlook, it appears that the default setting for POP3 mail accounts is to leave a copy of the messages on the server. To disable this option go to the File tab at the top (apparently called the backstage tab) and click on the Account Settings button. Select your account, then click Change. Click 'More Settings' and select the 'Advanced' tab and uncheck the box labelled "Leave a copy of messages on the server"

Easy but why change the default? A lot of people seem to be getting caught out and only discover a problem when their ISP helpfully mails them to advise that their inbox is full.

Firefox 4 will go 64 bit

Matt Little — Tue, 11 May 2010 10:43:00 GMT

About time.

The day that Microsoft lost the plot with respect to business mobiles

Matt Little — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:48:00 GMT

I'm running Windows 7 64 bit, so decided to install Office 2010 64 bit. I then tried to sync my Windows Mobile phone with that setup.

I've just found that I can't sync my windows mobile phone with this combination. The problem? Microsoft can't be bothered to get it working.:

"Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) synchronization WMDC does not synchronize with Microsoft Outlook 2010 if you use the 64-bit version of Outlook 2010. In such cases, an error message displays that states that there is no default mail client or the current mail client cannot fulfill the messaging. WMDC synchronizes correctly with the 32-bit version of Outlook 2010. To synchronize a Windows Phone with Outlook 2010 by using Windows Mobile Device Center, uninstall Outlook 2010 64-bit. Then use the original installer that you used to obtain Outlook 2010 64-bit to install Outlook 2010 32-bit. Outlook 2010 32-bit is the default option."

Quote from TechNet.

OK, so I know that Windows Phone 7 is coming soon (or whatever they call it this week) but really - how can you release a 64 bit Office system that breaks everyone's Windows mobile phones?

Windows 7 Explorer Crash 64 bit

Matt Little — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:22:00 GMT

I installed Windows 7 on a machine at the weekend and I am sadly disappointed by the lack of stability. After a random period of time (sometimes several hours) explorer starts crashing and although it nicely restarts itself, it keeps doing this every minute or two. This issue was apparent on a fresh install with only windows installed.

I have no idea what "starts" this behaviour but once it has started, doing things like right-clicking somewhere, sorting columns in an explorer window or trying to launch the control panel all seem to regularly trigger a crash.

There are many, many reports of similar behavior on Google (the fairly specific search string "windows 7 64 bit explorer crash" brings up over 540,000 results) and many suggested 'solutions' but nothing definite.

Kinda makes me wish I had stuck with XP for a bit longer!

Google Wave

Matt Little — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:59:00 GMT

Is anybody else out there on the Google Wave preview programme?

Oi Amaya - Get Off My Links

Matt Little — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:00:00 GMT

I recently installed a well known program called Amaya to create and edit an web site. The app is quite nice and works well, shame that it rewrites the way that my PC handles html and htm links.

The result (and I have replicated this on two PCs) is that when I'm sent an email with a link in it, I can't open the link or various other htm/html links. The problem can be resolved with some fairly wicked hacking with the registry via setting your default browser back to IE and then returning to Firefox.

Why and how did that get past testing?

Windows Update Reboot Timeout

Matt Little — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:22:00 GMT

I might have posted this before, but if you want to change the amount of time that windows give you between suggsting that you reboot following the recent windows update, you can do the following (care of Microsoft):

1. Click on Start and then click on Run.

2. Type in 'GPEDIT.MSC' without the quotes and click on OK.

3. Within the Group Policy Editor, navigate to 'Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Update'

4. On the right hand pane, double click on the policy named 'Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations'.

5. If the automatic computer restart prompt needs to be completely disabled, select "Disabled" and click on OK.

6. If the default time interval needs to be changed from a value of 10 minutes to some other value, select "Enabled" and type in the desired time interval in minutes in the following box. Click on OK.

7. Restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

You can, if you wish, disable the reminder instead of changing the timeout.

Usual caveats apply - don't do this if you don't know what you are doing and remember that if you don't reboot, your machine is not properly protected.

SQL 2008 Release candidate 0

Matt Little — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:47:00 GMT

The first release candidate for SQL 2008 can be downloaded here.

Some of the nice new features you can use are [taken from this website]:

Backup compression (25-35% at least) - huge cost savings and hey it's native! (note SQL 2005 encryption is not supported by product support but
Transparent Encryption - transparently encrypt the data without the application needing to be aware or know about it.
Database Mirroring Enhancements - compressed logs, more automatic fail over options
Policy Based Administration - manage policies across databases and even across instances and servers
Cluster enhancements - easier to configure and more scenarios that it supports including many in WS08 that provide more intelligence for failover
Resource Governor - limit wild database resources or control one database resources from another!
Easier to deploy - Easier to install, easier to configure, on and on
Reporting Services in SharePoint Mode (report builder rocks!) - easy reporting solutions built to leverage SharePoint mode with more flexibility and with ease.
Data compression - smaller databases with the same amount of data (compression will vary, but watch the overhead on enterprise environments or heavy used environments)
Powershell integration - super extensible and super scriptable

More in-depth details can be found here.

Western Digital and eSATA

Matt Little — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:51:00 GMT

I got an external Hard Drive for backups last year and with the new computer, I could make use of its eSATA link (much faster than USB).

Only I couldn't. It just wasn't recognised by windows at all.

After much, much, much searching talking about altering BIOS settings and downloading firmware for the SATA controller, the answer was much more Heath Robinson.

It appears that the Western Digital drives need eSATA cables with a really long connector. As most companies put some plastic housing around the end of the cable, it tends not to go far enough into the WD drive. Answer? Get a knife and take some of the plastic off the end of the cable.

Thanks to this guy for having the answer and showing what to do.